Limiting beliefs are dysfunctional ideas/beliefs that we make up about ourselves, others and the world around us. Like the name suggests, they inhibit and hold us back from positive growth. We all have them, to varying extents, but the good news is that there are ways to banish them for good. Ready? Here we go:
7 Steps To Banishing A Limiting Belief – Toronto Mindful Solutions Clinic
Since psychotherapy (also known as counselling) is a rather misunderstood concept (not to mention often steeped in stigma), the suggestion that you see a therapist can be scary.
You may perceive getting therapy to mean that there’s something wrong with you. But this isn’t the case at all! While it may not be for everyone, counselling can be beneficial to most people at challenging points in their lives.
Although it’s important to recognize that therapy is not a panacea, it makes a difference every day in thousands of lives across the world. If you find that you have uncomfortable feelings of “stuckness” in your life, you may very well benefit from this working with a psychotherapist.
Consider these ways that therapy can help you:
Get an objective viewpoint: Counseling allows the opportunity to talk about your current challenges with someone who’s trained, impartial and objective. Open communication with your friends and loved ones is usually a good idea. However, there are times when you might find it more comforting and safe to share your feelings, innermost thoughts, and worries with a therapist.
Clarify your feelings: Many times, people begin therapy feeling confused and not really able to identify their emotions. A good therapist can assist you in recognizing your feelings. The therapeutic process can help you explore particularly troubling emotions and resolve them.
Learn to appropriately communicate: Being able to share honest, genuine feelings using more effective communication can enrich your relationships and help you succeed in your life. Once you learn to pay more attention to your feelings and share them with others, you’ll get more of what you want from life, whatever that may be. Most importantly, your life is more fulfilling when you live based on how you truly feel.
Get stress-relief: How many times do you have an opportunity to say whatever you want however you want with no repercussions later? It’s possible to liberate yourself from psychological pain by talking with a therapist. Therapy is a safe place to vent your negative feelings. Whether you’re feeling scared, hurt, angry, lonely, confused, stuck or other negative feelings, you can share it with your therapist, take a load off your chest, and gain clarity. For many, therapy is a sanctuary when they’re feeling overwhelmed with negativity in their life. This makes counselling a great stress reliever!
It’s all about you: When you go to therapy, the session is focused on your benefit. Your time with a psychotherapist is all about you. You can say whatever you want, and you won’t ever have to worry about being judged by the therapist, as they are trained to keep their personal feelings out of it.
Gain valuable insights: When you talk about yourself with someone who’s non-judgmental and objective, you’re truly tuned in to the moment and what you’re saying. Therapy provides a chance for you to hear yourself talk and share your own personal struggles. It may sound unusual, but people in counselling frequently have “a-ha” moments about something they shared. Your therapist will ask questions which encourage you to examine your current situation more thoroughly. After all, human difficulties are complex. Through this process, you can discover your motives and learn to understand yourself better. Developing insight and awareness into your feelings empowers you to set priorities about what’s most important to you and make choices that enable you to live the life you truly seek.
Bring out your strengths: With therapy, you can develop or gain confidence in your capacity to live a healthy, fulfilling life, while learning more about what makes you tick, and how to harness your strengths.
Simply put, working with a therapist can be one of the most profound gifts you can ever give yourself. Most likely, you’ll experience less stress, feel more satisfied and contented with your life after participating in counselling. If you find yourself struggling emotionally, remind yourself that therapy can help. Tell yourself that therapy is a crucial component of your self-care plan. And then commit to doing the work!
So here we are, in the new year, which is always a great time of year to develop good, new habits or to deepen old ones.
Todayโs blog post is about the benefits of regular journaling.
Who among us used to keep a diary when we were younger?
I know Iโve been a lifelong journaler; I started the habit pretty much as soon as I learned to write full sentences! I must have filled up dozens and dozens of old diaries over the years because I intuitively understood journals as the powerful tools they are to help me understand my struggles and fears without judgment or punishment. I remember how good it felt to release all of those thoughts and feelings, and to write out my deepest, most personal hopes and dreams, getting them out of my head and down onto paper. My world somehow seemed clearer after journaling.
But then adulthood rolled aroundโฆ and my journaling stopped being as prolific as it used to be. Like so many adults, I too can get caught up in the busyness of day-to-day life. Adulting is hard, yโall! I know Iโm not alone on this because I hear it often from my clients too.
Butโฆ itโs such a shame that so many of us have stopped keeping regular journals!
One of the very first things I do with all my clients as soon as I start working with them is to encourage them to get back to a regular journaling practice as a supplemental support to our work together. Keeping a regular diary is a great way to develop self-reflection and self- compassion. It helps us to understand our shadow selves, our triggers, our deepest dreamsโฆ In my years of working one-on-one with clients in private practice, Iโve noticed that those who regularly write in their journals are the ones who more often than not get the clarity they’re seeking much sooner. And as a result, they are usually the ones who โgraduateโ from therapy a LOT sooner. Positive outcomes are more easily attained, and at a much more rapid pace. WHY? Itโs simple. Writing down our thoughts and feelings helps us understand them more clearly. It helps us notice our limiting beliefs and our dysfunctional coping mechanisms. It helps us get in touch with our core values – what really matters to us, what we want more of. It propels us forward.
Soโฆ if you struggle with stress, depression, or anxiety, or even if youโre just feeling STUCK (don’t we all at times?!), keeping a journal is a great idea. It can help you gain control of your emotions, improve your mental health, and gain CLARITY on your life. Journalling can help you prioritize any problems, fear and concerns. It can help you track your day to day thoughts and feelings, and can also provide you with a great opportunity to practice positive self-talk and affirmations.
Soโฆ journaling is a pretty simple but powerful tool to help develop a healthy lifestyle for better managing stress, anxiety, and mental health & wellness. Itโs an incredible tool to help you cultivate a more MINDFUL life. And when I talk of an overall healthy lifestyle that includes journaling, Iโm also talking about things like
Lowering your stress levels
Eating a healthy, balanced, nutrient-rich diet
Exercising regularly, preferably outside, in nature while absorbing the sunโs healing Vitamin D
Meditating each day
Getting plenty of sleep each night
Reducing (or ideally abstaining) from alcohol and drugs
Whenever Iโve recommended journaling to my clients, Iโve sometimes been met with resistance from them.
โBut itโs so time-consuming, Sandyโโฆ. โI have no time.โ… “I’m MUCH too busy for that.”
โI would have no idea what to even write in my journal.โ
โThe blank pages overwhelm me.โ
โI have too many thoughts in my head, and I canโt possibly discern which ones are important enough to capture and which ones are justโฆ noise in my head.โ
Clearly, we seem to have collectively embraced the โIโm much too busyโ lament. Sure, life is busy with work/school, childcare, eldercare, paying the bills, cleaning the house, doing laundry, cooking, etc. But journaling doesnโt have to be a long, time-consuming process. Some days, I will jot down some stream of consciousness notes as they pop into my head in under 5 minutes, in point form, on the Notes app in my phone. Other days, as time allows, the entries will be deeper and more fleshed out, and handwritten in a journal. Iโve also noticed the best time for me to journal is first thing in the morning, immediately after having meditated. I got into this habit years ago, after having read Julia Cameron’s wonderous The Artist’s Way, in which she describes the importance of what she calls Morning Pages.
My point is, journaling doesnโt have to take hours and hours to be effective. We can help ourselves by trading out some of our mind-numbing Netflix time with some important self-care time that actually helps us connect more deeply with ourselves and our values.
As for the excuse of โI donโt know what to write aboutโโฆ Thatโs a pretty valid concern too, especially if youโre a journaling newbie or somebody who hasnโt engaged in this practice in a long timeโฆ which is why Iโve recently published a colourful journal with over 80 powerful coaching prompts to help you get in touch with yourself and live a more mindful life. And Iโve since Iโve always understood the deep connection between creative expression and self-reflection, Iโve included a sampling of some mandalas that Iโve drawn over the year, which you can colour in, if you like. There are also plenty of blank pages on which you can create your own artwork to help get your creativity and self-reflection juices flowing.
The book is available for purchase at most major online retailers like Amazon, etc. But I’ll let you in on a little secret… It’s also available to preview and buy at a lower price, direct from the publisher, below. I would love for you to have a look, buy it, and to share it with your circles to help me spread the word. And please tell me how you like using it, if you do decide to purchase it!
My Mindful Life Journal by Sandy Kiaizadeh. Click on this photo to preview and purchase this book direct from the publisher.
You know, keeping a journal can help you create order when your world feels like itโs in chaos. Using a journal like this one will help you get to know yourself by revealing your most private fears, dreams, thoughts, and feelings. I encourage you to look at your writing time as personal relaxation time. Remember that it’s a meditative process that can help you de-stress and wind down.
I invite you to get into the habit of journaling again. Make self-care an important part of your 2020. Make the practice of journaling a special time to reconnect with yourself, by creating a ritual around itโฆ maybe writing in a place that’s relaxing and soothing, or maybe combining it with another mindful ritual, like tea time. Ultimately though, look forward to your journaling time, and know that you’re doing something good for your mind, body and spirit.
Here’s another guided audio recording, which is good to use if you’re having trouble falling (or staying!) asleep.
Hypnosis and meditation are both wonderful tools to help us access a slower brain frequency state. Are you ready to go into a very relaxing state to allow yourself the deep sleep that you deserve? If so, this guided audio is for you. Sweet dreams!
This meditation is a โbreathing anchorโ mindfulness practice to help root your awareness into the present moment, dissolve anxiety, decrease stress, and allow the body to heal in a relaxed, peaceful state.
Just a quick note to let you all know that I am on holidays at the moment, returning to the office on Tuesday, July 2, 2019. Wishing you all a sunny June!
I often get asked by clients what this idea of “self-care” really looks like, practically speaking. It seems like we’re bombarded with this expression everywhere we look, especially on our social media feeds. Here are my thoughts on self-care, as well as some quick tips you can use today to begin practising good self-care.
FYI – This video was recorded last summer, but it somehow got lost in my iCloud and I forgot to upload it as a result… I only found it today as I was trying to clean out my hard drive as part of my laptop’s regular maintenance. Guess all my self-caring over the past 7 months made me forget to share this with you all! ๐
Hope you enjoy it! Feel free to share your comments with me below.
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